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Future Tense
In the Temporal Cold War '' |image= |series= |production=40358-042/216 |producer(s)= |story= |script= Mike Sussman and Phyllis Strong |director=James Whitmore, Jr. |imdbref=tt0572213 |guests=Vaughn Armstrong as Admiral Forrest and Cullen Douglas as Suliban Soldier |previous_production=Cease Fire |next_production=Canamar |episode=ENT S02E16 |airdate=19 February 2003 |previous_release=Cease Fire |next_release=Canamar |story_date(s)=Unknown (2152) |previous_story=Cease Fire |next_story=Canamar }} =Summary= The discovery of a derelict pod with a long-dead human pilot opens up a mystery. Some of the crew speculate he is the first human to invent warp drive technology, Zefram Cochrane, but DNA profiling reveal the remains are not his. Commander Tucker and Lieutenant Reed examine the mysterious pod and discover, via a floor panel, that it is larger on the inside than the outside. They also recover a device from the core which still has a weak energy signature. Shortly afterwards, a Suliban ship arrives and claims salvage rights, but Captain Archer refuses to yield it without explanation. They open fire, and beam in a boarding party, but are finally repelled. Undaunted, Enterprise then sets course to rendezvous with Tal'Kir, a Vulcan ship. Doctor Phlox's scans reveal the dead pilot has multi-generational DNA fragments from several alien species including Vulcan, Terrelian, and Rigelian. Seeking answers, Archer and Sub-Commander T'Pol enter Agent Daniels' cabin, and they learn that the pod is a time travel vessel from the 31st century. Meanwhile, Tucker and Reed, on returning to the pod, get stuck in a recurring time-loop. This heightens T'Pol's concerns and she discusses the situation with Archer, who feels they must have more information on the Temporal Cold War. Tholians arrive, requesting the pod and warning Enterprise of temporal radiation. Again, Archer refuses, and they leave after he threatens to destroy it. The crew, reaching the rendezvous destination, discover that the Tholians have disabled the Tal'Kir, and soon disable Enterprise as well. The Suliban arrive and a battle ensues between them and the Tholians. The Tholians succeed in destroying the Suliban ships. After working through another time-loop, Archer and Reed booby-trap the pod and send it out into space, but the Tholians immediately disarm the device. Tucker then gets the temporal distress beacon to power up, and soon the future ship and its contents dematerialize. The Tholians leave, and Enterprise assists the Vulcan ship, becoming Archer's olive branch to the Vulcan High Command for their support and help. =Errors and Explanations= IMDB Factual errors # When Enterprise finds the Vulcan ship disabled and tries to go back to warp, the Tholians fire on them disabling their engines. This causes Enterprise to come to a stop, however, inertia should keep it moving at the speed it was travelling when it was hit. The impact of the weapon fire could have dampened the inertia enough for Enterprise to come to a complete stop. Nit Central # Dan Gunther on Wednesday, February 19, 2003 - 2:54 pm: The disabled Vulcan cruiser. Beautiful! The only problem I had was that there were no casualties. There was a chuck taken out of the hull, for crying out loud! Although, in Minefield, a chunk was blown out of the Enterprise's saucer, and there were no casualties, so I suppose its possible. Hey, I just deflated my own nit! Dinger. Or the impacted areas on both occasions didn’t have anybody in them! # Influx on Wednesday, February 19, 2003 - 7:08 pm: Obviously Trip and Reed don't know how to descend ladders on a ship. You hold on to the sides, the vertical rails, so that the guy above you doesn't step on your fingers. Looked like Reed almost did that to Trip. Perhaps they decided to risk holding onto the steps to ensure a firmer grip. # SMT on Wednesday, February 19, 2003 - 7:12 pm: Phasering open a hatch isn't such a good idea when you don't know what's on the other side, like, for instance, a toxic atmosphere. (Archer did do a lot of coughing as it opened. Maybe that explains it.) Josh M on Wednesday, February 19, 2003 - 11:38 pm: The phase pistols only have two settings, huh? So what was all of that adjusting that Reed was doing before opening the door? TJFleming on Thursday, February 20, 2003 - 7:35 am: Even more fundamentally, with an engineering department full of TOOLS, they use a WEAPON to open the hatch. “My watch seems to have stopped. May I borrow your crowbar?” Seniram 22:49, October 28, 2018 (UTC) They may have decided that a phase pistol may have been the only thing capable of getting the hatch open. # Admiral Forrest refers to Enterprise as being 100 light-years from Earth. Back in Dead Stop, it was 130 light-years away. It isn't impossible that the ship turned around, and after a certain point it becomes a good idea, but the writers have been pretty insistent so far on sending it farther and farther out. Darth Sarcasm on Thursday, February 20, 2003 - 10:30 am: Last week's episode had Enterprise going to a planet caught in the middle of a Vulcan/Andorian struggle, so presumably Enterprise backtracked a bit to get there.LUIGI NOVI on Friday, February 21, 2003 - 2:29 am: That doesn’t mean they’re not going to do some double-backing here and there, especially if they’re going to be attending medical conferences and mediating Vulcan-Andorian disputes and such. # It's official. With Phlox chiming in, now everybody on Enterprise knows about the Temporal Cold War and time travel, which was supposed to be such a huge secret back in Cold Front. Of course, several other races know about it as well. Which raises the point, if the TCW is such common knowledge, why does the Vulcan Science Directorate still not believe in time travel? Perhaps they decided it was impossible because they can’t acomplish it! # Sparrow47 on Wednesday, February 19, 2003 - 7:20 pm: So, after getting shot at by the Sulliban for so long, how exactly was it that there were no casualties in sick bay when the body was beamed out? Although I should add that I loved Phlox's reaction to said beam out, which was very well done. LUIGI NOVI on Friday, February 21, 2003 - 2:29 am: Just because they were shooting at the ship doesn’t mean that there were hull breaches, or people in the vicinity of them.Sparrow47 on Friday, February 21, 2003 - 9:35 am: True, but is that the only way people ever get injured, what with the exploding consoles and everything? LUIGI NOVI on Friday, February 21, 2003 - 11:52 am: No, but it’s not impossible for there to be no injuries sustained if people were careful and holding onto to stuff during the battle. It’s even possible that there were some scratches here and there, but the people stayed at their posts and waited until the battle was over before going to sickbay. # T'Pol, T'Pol, T'Pol... After the events of Shockwave, we got the sense that T'Pol's disbelief in time travel was a mere facade. Here, she seems even more convinced in time travel's impossibility, even with ample evidence staring her in the face! Does this seem at all right? LUIGI NOVI on Friday, February 21, 2003 - 2:29 am: From her point of view, everything they’ve seen so far can be rationalized with more conventional explanations. So there’s a hologram in Daniels’ quarters of a Vulcan cruiser she’s never seen. The Xyrillians have holography, and maybe Daniels likes to design his own fan ships like I do. :) The disappearance of the future ship could be due to transport or cloaking by another faction that intervened clandestinely. ''' # So I realize Daniels' quarters are supposed to be all secret and everything, but was there any reason that they couldn't turn the lights on once they were inside? ''Josh M on Wednesday, February 19, 2003 - 11:38 pm:'' Easier to see Daniels' computer?LUIGI NOVI on Friday, February 21, 2003 - 2:29 am: It made it easier to see the database.' # Oh, and about Daniels' quarters, Daniels' database seemed really unhelpful. I mean, the only thing they found out about the ship is that it supposedly came from the 31st century! Archer conjectured that it could have been a researcher's ship- couldn't the database have confirmed this? 'LUIGI NOVI on Friday, February 21, 2003 - 2:29 am: They may not have been entirely adept in the use of the database. Personally, I’d have considered it a nit if they were.' # ''Sparrow47 on Wednesday, February 19, 2003 - 7:24 pm: Ah, that's what I forgot- Does Trip's "micro-caliper" seem to function a lot like a "wrench" to anyone else? LUIGI NOVI on Friday, February 21, 2003 - 2:29 am: It looks like a caliper to me. Although he does turn the component on the beacon slightly, he seems to use the caliper more to measure it, which is what a caliper is for, rather than to insert it or move it around. My question, however, is why is it called a micro-caliper? It looks just like a regular-sized one, and it isn’t used on any really small object. TJFleming on Friday, February 21, 2003 - 7:45 am: The "micro" part could refer to the resolution: it measures large objects to, say, the nearest micron. (But why?--particularly when the instrument is hand-held.) Nevertheless, this would also explain the absence of a mechanical scale. Resolution this fine would require an interferometer or some such. # Summerfield on Wednesday, February 19, 2003 - 8:33 pm: Things I noticed: This is the first time the Suliban have been seen to use a transporter, is it a gift from Future Guy or technology that's gaining popularity and prevalence? Sparrow47 on Wednesday, February 19, 2003 - 10:29 pm: I think you're right! Unless... hmmmm... didn't they have to beam the Klingon out in Broken Bow? Josh M on Wednesday, February 19, 2003 - 11:38 pm: I go with the gaining popularity and prevalence. Or maybe it is a gift from Future Guy.LUIGI NOVI on Friday, February 21, 2003 - 2:29 am: Good catch. But then why didn’t they use it to beam out Archer at the end of Shockwave Part 1? Seniram 22:49, October 28, 2018 (UTC) Either it wasn’t working, or Daniels managed to block the transporter beam. # When the Suliban try to open the launch bay, Archer orders Hoshi to seal it. Hoshi is sealing the launch bay, from communications? Shouldn't someone at T'Pol or Reed's station be doing this? LUIGI NOVI on Friday, February 21, 2003 - 2:29 am: T’Pol is at Reed’s station, and she’s presumably busy trying to fend off the attack from the Suliban ship. Since Hoshi’s the one who tells this to Archer, and Archer’s standing closer to her, and control stations are presumably multi-tasking, this makes sense. # As T'Pol hinted when entering Daniels' quarters, does that lock serve any purpose at this point? Josh M on Wednesday, February 19, 2003 - 11:38 pm: It prevents non-Archer, non-Reed personnell from getting into Daniels' quarters, finding the database, and reading all about the future..LUIGI NOVI on Friday, February 21, 2003 - 2:29 am: I don’t recall T’Pol hinting at any such thing. I found her comment odd, but I didn’t see it as a comment about the lock. I thought she was being literal. As for the lock, of course there’s reason for it. You have 31st century technology, and a friggin’ TESSERACT in there, for crying out loud. Archer doesn’t want anyone to touch it. # When disagreeing with Archer about keeping the ship, T'Pol warns that "other systems may be affected." What 'systems' were already affected? Are 'Trip and Reed' a system? LUIGI NOVI on Friday, February 21, 2003 - 2:29 am: Pick, pick, pick! But since we’re grungy nitpicking here, she actually said that it could spread to "other sections," and "affect more systems." :) # The Undesirable Element on Wednesday, February 19, 2003 - 8:40 pm: There's something better about the way Enterprise does these space battles. I think it might be because they don't do them that often so that when they do, there's more urgency about them. Voyager had a space battle about as often as TOS had a random fistfight (i.e. every other week). I like it this way better. Sparrow47 on Wednesday, February 19, 2003 - 10:29 pm: Maybe it's because so many of these battles happen at warp? Or because there are often more than two or three big ships involved? # Keith Alan Morgan (Kmorgan) on Thursday, February 20, 2003 - 2:18 am: Phlox says that at least one of the dead guy's ancestors was Vulcan. Only one? How does that work? Doesn't the Vulcan have parents & wouldn't those parents have parents and so on and so on and so on...? His use of the term ‘at least’ would imply more than one. # If the ship is bigger on the inside than the outside, then what's the point of having that tiny tube as an exit & entrance? It’s the only way to fit it to the exterior without enlarging the outer shell! # LUIGI NOVI on Thursday, February 20, 2003 - 4:28 am: When Travis contacts Archer and T’Pol in Daniels’ quarters in Act 2, he says he can’t identify the ship approaching them. Broken Bow and this episode establish that the Vulcans are familiar with the Tholians. So why didn’t Travis use the Vulcan database to identify the Tholian ship? The Vulcans may have decided to restrict access to the senior officers. # I also wonder why the Suliban didn’t demand their cell ship back from the Enterprise, which the Enterprise has had since the pilot. Josh M on Thursday, February 20, 2003 - 12:40 pm: My memory's pretty fuzzy on the episodes but couldn't they just have taken it when they took control of the Enterprise in Shockwave Part 2? ''Seniram 22:49, October 28, 2018 (UTC)''They may not want it back, especially as they don’t know what those pesky humans have done to it! # Why did they have to arm the torpedo manually? If the torpedoes are normally armed in the torpedo tubes by some computer command, can’t they just use that same command after they stick it in the future ship and jettison it? Perhaps that can only be done when the torpedo is in the tube! # LUIGI NOVI on Thursday, February 20, 2003 - 4:40 am: For some reason, the second picture from this episode on this episode's page at startrek.com has the caption: "Archer and Reed examine the mysterious device," when in fact, they're simply arming the torpedo, and the third, "Reed takes aim", is for a shot of Reed pointing a phase pistol at something, when I don't believe he ever holds a phase pistol in the episode. Sparrow47 on Thursday, February 20, 2003 - 7:13 am: Yes, except for when he phasered open the door to the pod. Josh M on Thursday, February 20, 2003 - 12:40 pm: He exchanged fire with a Suliban when they were attempting to steal the ship the first time. # Maquis Lawyer on Thursday, February 20, 2003 - 6:54 am: I liked the episode, and most of my other comments are already taken, but one thing really stuck out. A Vulcan combat cruiser ???!!!. Now I missed Cease Fire last week (both the original broadcast and the Sunday repeat were pre-empted for basketball games), and I have come to accept that Vulcans of this era are different from the Vulcans which we have come to know in previous Trek incarnations. But I cannot buy that our supposedly logical and pacifist Vulcans have a vessel that they refer to as a combat cruiser. That would be like the Klingons having a research vessel that they call an "explorer". Sure, Vulcans of this era might actually have armed warships (and Klingons might have unarmed research vessels). But Vulcans calling it a combat cruiser? Sheesh... Maybe B&B really do just want to mess with our minds. The Vulcans are in a state of hostilities with the Andorians at this point in history. # Heyst on Thursday, February 20, 2003 - 9:04 am: Why didn't the Tholians here sound like the ones in TOS? ScottN on Thursday, February 20, 2003 - 9:27 am: Improved UT in TOS? # Reed sure is shaping up to be the paranoid crybaby when it comes to torpedoes, displaying skittishness around detonating them too close to the Enterprise for the second time since Dead Stop. First, after Archer first suggests to Reed in Act 4 that they remove a torpedo warhead and arm it manually, Reed says he recommends they move it around as little as possible. Really? Is that why they had the FERENGI, of all people, lugging them around at the end of Acquisition? Josh M on Thursday, February 20, 2003 - 12:40 pm: They weren't arming it at the time though. # Scott McClenny on Sunday, February 23, 2003 - 9:38 am: Did the medical files Phlox had compiled from the corpse disappear from the medical database along with the corpse and ship when they were beamed back into the future? Obi-Juan on Sunday, February 23, 2003 - 10:11 am: It's possible. For all we know, Daniels programmed the computer to erase all data collected on the ship, the beacon, and the corpse 2 minutes after the end of this episode. Category:EpisodesCategory:Enterprise